Rare Handles — what makes a social media handle rare?

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1

This is something I’ve been wanting to learn more about and I’m sure there are others as well.

I think the more the majority of us understand why handles are rare and why it’s important, the more we will be willing to spend money on handles which should theoretically increase these types of sales here on SWAPD.

So, for those of you with a knowledge to share I ask the following questions.

  1. What makes a handle rare?

  2. Why is owning a rare handle important and what are the benefits?

  3. How do you value a handle once it’s been deemed rare?

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2

I am going to shower you with helpful badges (once I get back and actually create them) for creating good threads. There will be incentives behind them too (the badges) :smiley: I want people to create meaningful and interesting topics that help others.

I will answer to your topic when I fly back in a couple of days.

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3

I like the sound of that! I am glad these are useful, but if I’m being honest I’m just trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible from all of the experience that surrounds me here. :ok_hand:

4

Usually, a rare handle means something that is desired, but not available. These are usually taken in the early days of each platforms launch, and sometimes sat on for a while. For example, country names are usually very rare names to have because a lot of people desire them, and why do these people desire them so much? Because, people are usually very passionate about their own countries or countries they have visted. Passion is a big driving force in anything when it comes to branding, but it also has other benefits. Both nationwide, and local businesses will want to advertise to their customers, and a handle that is of a city or the whole of the country can be beneficial to their business.

Expanding onto this I’ll include an example of a very desired niche within social media. Animal accounts. Animal accounts are so popular due to people usually loving them, and wanting to share these cute fluffy balls to their friends. This provides engagement to the owner, and satisfaction from its followers. Thus, both parties are happy, and advertises will flock to these accounts to get exposure to these loyal fans which are engaged with the account. That’s why a memorable, and something relevant to the niche is important. Another example of rare handles are those that corrospond to a popular tag. Going with the animal account example on Instagram a tag with #dog will have much more impact than #thatfluffydog. If dog is a tag/catagory on a site then its likely to be searched for, and if your account handle is identical to that it generates views from searching alone. It also bulds authority due to its name, for a lack of better explaining it just seems more authentic than #yoiamthatdog. It presents itself as almost an official account.

As for valuing them. That’s niche specifc, and is something which is very hard to determine. People will have different ideas of how much a username is worth. However, looking at the search volume of the exact account name is probably a good idea. Hopefully, others can weigh in on this.

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